


Professor Peletier

by bedlinens



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedlinens/pseuds/bedlinens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Daryl is a student and Carol his teacher. Part of my series "the many ways Carol and Daryl could have met". Non ZA, AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Professor Peletier

He was plaguing her dreams.

Well, not plaguing, but he kept on popping up in them, even the most innocent ones, and she was starting to wonder if her subconscious had caught on something her consciousness had not.

And there was the psychology teacher talking again…

Carol went out of her office for a second and went to the bathroom where she washed her face, thinking that those were her office hours and she should not spend them sleeping.

She looked at her face in the mirror, and wondered… So many thing really… Where had her life go? She was turning 40 in a short time, and lately, as she taught psychology 101 at Georgia State, she found herself looking at her students and just feeling jealous of their youth and their carefree attitude. Had she ever been anything like them?

Some would have their back to her, and she had given up on yelling for attention, as most only came here thinking it would be easy credits until she gave them their first finals or even before, their first case study, and they usually got white with dread. “When life gave you lemon” was a shitty phrase. When life gave you inattentive students, you drank lemonade as you came up with some assignment they’d have to deal with that would remind them Professor Peletier was not to be screwed with.

Of course, as they were students, young, carefree and many others trope you could see in a movie, they would forget about it once the homework was handed in, and you were back to talking to people not even facing you for a while. However, only Don Quixote was any sort of good at fighting windmills, and Carol didn’t fancy herself so delusional she couldn’t deal with the fact that she would never have a perfect class of students, begging to hear her words. She let it go, knowing the next assignment would avenge her.

She took a deep breathe, then went back to her office.

She had papers to grade, so it was not wasted time, however apart from when a big paper was due, she usually had no one coming to her office hours.

It was the way it was in all topics taught at GS, so she didn’t feel any worse or better about it.

Though, to be honest, she regretted having napped on her papers, as she remembered the dream she had entertained.

Lately, she had started teaching for the night classes, mostly out of boredom, looking for a new challenge. In one of her classes, he was there. That should almost warrant a capital H, she thought, He was there. Daryl Dixon, 30 something student who listened to her class, or so she thought. He did seem focused on her lips… She told herself to stop it. Her brain was having a blast, whatever. She should know better than try to come up with a rationale in which her dreams and his appearances in them would be fueled by things happening in real life.

It had started innocently, as far as dreams went. She dreamt she was in charge of taking the nearly millennials on a field trip, and he would be there, and they would have a moment, exchange a meaningful stare. She had dreamt she had met him at the supermarket near her place, and he had almost kissed her as they were saying goodbyes. That dream perhaps had been one of the toughest to cope with. It had seemed so real, and he did go to the same supermarket she did, she had needed some time to fully accept it had only been a dream.

And then there were the “oh my God my spirit animal is a Cougar” dreams. She blushed slightly has she remembered several scenarios. Let’s just say it involved nudity, and sometimes acrobatic moves and that climax was always achieved, sometimes more than once.

She had been teaching and practicing psychology for too long to ignore that those dreams were normal, especially when you were going through a dry spell… Since Ed…

She shivered. Her ex-husband was lying in his grave and she wouldn’t want him anywhere else. Part of her hoped he would have gotten there before he had time to get their 4 years old daughter with him.

That had been the turning point for Carol, the moment she had needed help, and realized that it could be an endless circle where everybody could have a role. She had done her night classes then, and become Professor Peletier soon after. She had kept his name, non-capital H there, not to remind herself of what she had gone through, but because it was the only thing she felt most days she still shared with her late daughter. Ed could go to hell, if he wasn’t there already, but Sophia…

She tried to focus on the paper in front of her, even though it was clearly a plagiarism from Wikipedia. She was hoping to find a golden nugget somewhere, something she could grade student on instead of reporting them to the faculty for their acts. Alas, she found none.

She checked the time, and decided to call it a night.

She needed to meet a man, she thought, one who was closer to her own age, and who would want the same things she did, even if she had no idea what that was.

She needed something meaningful to stop the longing for a man she wouldn’t have. It was not unhealthy as long as you knew what was and was not happening, but it was painful, and she had had enough pain in her life, she wanted something else, was even thinking about trying to be happy for a change….

She drove to the supermarket as she remembered the list of errands she had in her purse. It seemed that in the wake of one of her dreams, she had begun forgetting about the grocery shopping to be done, as it was always a bit saddening to be reminded that she had dreamt all of it.

However, she needed to it, and this was the one place where they had that special brand of yoghurt she could eat all day long and never grow tired of.

She entered, grabbed a basket, and started walking the aisles, looking for what she needed.

“Professor Peletier?” She heard.

She slowly turned around, discreetly pinching herself. It was him, Him. The right Him. Oh God.

“Yes, Mister Dixon?” She answered with a smile on her face, as she prepared herself for the work related question which was bound to follow.

She would answer, and he would leave. She knew for a fact she was not dreaming, even her subconscious was not sadistic enough to impose such scenarios on her.

“I’m sorry… Shouldn’t have said anything,” he said as he started shifting from one foot to another.

It was very hard not to let herself analyze his behavior. She was too involved, in ways he couldn’t (and she sometimes couldn’t) understand for her analysis to be spot on.

“Are you sure? I’m always available for questions about my classes.”

“That’s the thing… If I wanted to ask you about your classes, I’d come to your office hours. Forget it, I’m being… Forget it.”

And he ran out on her. She was bewildered.

The fuck?

She finished her shopping quickly, wanting to go back to her place, and read way too much into their brief exchange.

He had been his usual self which meant she was of course feeling all woman. He had this way... He left her speechless. She didn’t want to wax poetry about the way he looked like a God or whatever. He looked human. He looked very human. And beautiful. And thoughtful. Some of the papers he had turned in had been so … researched, it had been a dream to grade them.

And there she was again, in the Dixon bubble.

She paid and went out.

She almost dropped her bags as she saw him having a smoke outside.

She walked slowly, not sure if she was supposed to ask him what he meant, or let it slide. So far, most of their conversations had been non-verbal, and it had been great. Sure, he had answered a couple of questions in class, but the few emails he had shot her, and she back had been very old fashioned in a sense, and she had reminded herself not to read anything from those. When something was written by hand, you could analyze better, but when it came to letters on a screen, you were just begging to be wrong if you thought whatever you had decided to read between the lines. A screen was well, a screen, it changed words, meanings. It didn’t carry tone or emotions. You could rewrite a message a hundred times to get it right, and it didn’t have to mean you had any particular intent doing that apart from wanting to be understood efficiently.

She knew all this by heart, yet she replayed it in her head, as it kept her mind busy. He had seen her, and the stare he gave her… She would be dreaming tonight, alright…

“Goodnight Mister Dixon,” she said, passing him by.

She never expected him to softly get in front of her, and make her stop walking. She never expected him to look at her the way a man looked at a woman, and not at a teacher.

There was something in his eyes, and she noticed that he was once again focused on her lips.

Unable to control herself, she licked her bottom lip quickly, and she knew her body was hoping for something that would never happened.

Her groceries crashed on the floor as he grabbed her waist and planted his mouth on hers, seeming to want to devour her.

Oh yeah, she had been wrong. It could happen. It was happening.

He seemed to step back, as if he wanted to say he was sorry, or maybe he gotten the vibe that her brain was still running at high speed so she brought her hands around his neck and pulled him closer to her, deeper in the kiss, and this time, she happily shut off her brain, letting her senses take it all in.

Maybe dreams came true sometimes.

 


End file.
